Finland is cool, Finland is happy: We are a small country of only 5,5 million inhabitants. Yet we have the BEST public library in the world - OODI and we are again the HAPPIEST nation in the world! Maybe books and happiness are related? Is reading good literature one factor in our happiness?

Talking about the import and export of literature. Finland 'imports' a lot of international literature. We have excellent translators who bring world literature to Finnish readers. Good literature opens doors to different cultures and countries worldwide. It seems that in the course of last twelve months I have red a bit more than 50 books from all over the world, some translated into Finnish, some in the original language. SEE my read in 2019 list. The writers come from:

Finland was Guest of Honor at Frankfurt Book Fair (2014). That status ended up in a considerable increase in literature rights sold abroad. FILI (Finnish Literature Exchange) is an organisation that promotes the export of literature from Finland by facilitating professional contacts and serving as a “home base” for translators of Finnish literature. Now they have started a new project called FINNLAND. COOL. HAPPY.

Look at this interesting link showing statistics worldwide of translated Finnish literature. The ten top countries are Germany - 1268, Estonia - 855, Sweden - 853, Denmark - 531, Norway - 518, France - 504, Hungary - 390, Poland - 340 and Spain - 302 with books. Followed later on the list by UK with 288 and The United States with 260 books.

Pajtim Statovci (b. 1990) is one of Finland's rising new literature stars. His first novel, My Cat, Yugoslavia / Amazon, became internationally acclaimed and was praised by The New York Times and The Guardian, among others. Statovci's second novel, The Heart of Tirana, was published in the United States in April 2019 under the name Crossing / Amazon. Bolla is Statovci’s brand new third novel, here with the fantastic Finnish cover. Bolla is scheduled to be published in the English version in 1921! It is very interesting how the covers differ in different markets. The international representation of Statovci will continue to be managed by The Wylie Agency.

An exciting and passionate non-fiction book about some of the bravest and most inspiring women throughout history: Renaissance female painters Artemisia Gentilechi, Lavinia Fontana,
Beatrice d-Este etc., Karen Blixen, Yayoi Kusama, Isabella Bird...This book is to be blamed for me traveling to Florence in three weeks ❤︎

14 syyskuuta 2019

Now that the summer is over it is time to look back to the lovely summer days. In my archives there are hundreds of photos of which I chose today critters. I’m not specialiced in photographing critters, but I searched what I have captured last summer. And it seems: mostly bumblebees!

Centaurea montana / June

Eryngium alpinum / July

Veronicastrum virginicum / August

Ligularia przewalskii / August

Echinops bannaticus / August

This the utmost bee & bumblebee magnet in my garden, so as the final photo